Kindergarten (PC) review "Suffer the little children"

During one of my first sessions with Kindergarten, I decided to be an insolent little turd. I ventured into the bathroom during lunchtime without a hall pass or a pack of cigarettes to pay off the hall monitor, then smarted off to him. He sent me to the principal's office like a brown-noser, and I rolled my eyes. I figured the dude in charge was probably going to give me a deep scolding before expelling me, thus resulting in mission failure/game over. Instead, he pulled out what appeared to be a Desert Eagle and shot me in the face.

Yes, this game features adults brutally--and blatantly--murdering children. For instance, if you get lippy with the janitor, he might beat you to death with his mop. Should you choose to eat lunch with your teacher, she'll poison your food. Display a flower during show and tell, and the class bully will fatally pummel you while your teacher cheers him on. Needless to say, some people will want to avoid this game at all costs, and I wouldn't blame them. For folks who enjoy extremely dark humor, though, this title is...

You know, I feel dirty saying it, but "entertaining."

Enjoying Kindergarten feels wrong because it presents horrific acts as punchlines. Yet somehow I can't help but laugh when the teacher awards me gold stars for bumping off my classmates or the principal acquits me of murder despite being covered head to toe in blood. Maybe it's the irony of it all that gets to me. We don't expect school faculty to slay kids or the class weirdo dispatch the aforementioned bully with a toxic chicken nugget, and that's half the reason it's hilarious. Even better, everyone is alive the next day as if they weren't blown to pieces or gunned down. Everything the game shows us is so grim and at odds with what we expect in real life that it's comedic.



Maybe part of it, too, is that I see this game for what it is: an embellishment of silly (yet relatable) childhood fears. I was a bit of a troublemaker as a youngster, which is strange because I was terrified of visiting the principal. I'm not talking a little perturbed, either; I practically feared for my life. But really, what reason did I have to be frightened? It's not like he was going to shoot me or anything... I also feared bullies as if they were going to murder me while my guardians did nothing to stop them, or that the strange kid in class could be a legit sociopath. Kindergarten covers all that material in ways that are equal parts bloody and comical.

In order to witness all of this madness, you need to tinker and experiment for a while. Each session consists of five phases (before class, during class, lunch, recess, and show and tell) that allow you to interact with your peers and collect or use event items. As you speak with each character, you unlock hints that detail more of the game's ins and outs, as well as tell you how to advance particular storylines.

You see, each student and the teacher offers missions for you to complete. When you start a session your best bet is to focus on one person and try to complete the challenges they provide. In order to do this, you'll need to say the correct lines of dialogue to the right people at the proper time, as well as nab whatever items you need to satisfy certain situations.



For instance, one girl named Cindy wants you to be her boyfriend, but she will only let you run with her if you torment another girl, Lily. After putting gum in Lily's hair, Cindy will want to play house. During this segment, you only need to agree with what she says and then pay her a dollar. If you don't have money at that point, you'll need to start the day over and get some cash out of your piggy bank or figure out a way to earn some quickly. Later on, Cindy will ask you to pull a huge prank on Lily, sending you out into the hallway during lunch period to fetch a rather gruesome event item so you can re-enact a scene from "Carrie" on the playground. Everything will seem like it's going splendid until you hit show and tell, where you will be absolutely killed if you didn't take care of a certain person early on in the proceedings. At that point, you would need to restart the day...

Believe me, relaunching mission lines gets irritating. You play through one character's quest package nearly to the end, only to realize you screwed the pooch during one section and you need to take everything from the top. You go through the same dialogue scenes you did earlier, reuse the same items over again, remember to perform the same tasks... It gets tedious, and you wonder why this point-and-click adventure doesn't come with options that allow you to restart a day at a certain period. Instead, you can either mulligan the phase you're on or do the whole day over again.

Thankfully, the hints you obtain prove super helpful, though I wouldn't call them "hints" so much as "straightforward directions." A lot of them tell you outright how to accomplish certain tasks, but honestly I'm okay with that. They effectively guide you through a character's storyline enough that you don't need to hit up Steam's walkthrough section or Google for help.



Once you've completed a character's sub-plot, you obtain a special item. Any other goodies you've collected up to that point return to their original positions, and anyone who died during the proceedings returns to life. The special items, though, await you in the same hub that holds your piggy bank at the start of each day. You can then grab them before a session and use them to complete some of the other mission lines. For example, Nugget's tale remains impossible unless you have a flower that Cindy gives you for being a good boyfriend. Nugget then gives you a hastily scrawled note that allows you to complete Lily's portion of the storyline--which leads up to the game's climax.

Honestly, I had more fun figuring out everyone's storylines and solving problems than I did laughing at gory misfortunes. Kindergarten delivers more than mere shock factor. It provides you with an experience that requires some thought while not bogging you down with obtuse puzzles. It also stands as yet another terrific game cut from the Pony Island cloth; a title that hides its grisliness beneath an adorable veneer. But don't let its bright color palette and edutainment-inspired presentation fool you, because it's a stone-cold killer.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 15, 2025) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.